On the 21st of December, many years ago, the first ever drama by the
Faculty of Sciences at Allahabad University was enacted on stage at the
largest Drama Hall in the University, which was located in the Faculty
of Arts!
When the students in the Arts Faculty found out that
some students of the Physics Department at Allahabad University, led by
myself, were about to enact a drama, there was much hooting and
jeering!! It was considered a big joke indeed that anyone in the Physics
Department would know how to act or know anything about dramas at all.
Science students were generally considered lackluster and dull, and
without any interest in anything even vaguely touching upon the Arts.
What kind of a drama would they put up on stage anyway!! More jeers and booing!!
So when the date for the enacting of the Drama came up -- December 21--
the Drama Hall was so packed that people had to stand in the aisles.
The Science students had come to back up their fellowmen and the Arts
Students had come to boo and jeer!!
By the time the drama was
over, there was thunderous applause and the audience rushed up on stage
to congratulate the actors, all but lifting them up on their shoulders!!
I must admit that the bursting of Fire Crackers close to the microphone
at the last scene of the drama really shook up the hall and some nearly
fell out of their seats!!
We of the Physics Department could hardly believe that such a thing could happen!! None of us were actors.
The Physics Department had a budget of Rs. 10 only for entertainment!!
Which was $ 2 in those days!! We were dissuaded by everyone, including
our own professors, from making fools out of ourselves on the stage!!
The professor who gave us the story of the making of the Atomic Bomb
was a certain Dr. Mehrotra of the Physics Department, who later turned
into our worst critic when he saw the comic episodes with which the
drama was rife, amongst the eccentric scientists of the time.
Most of the eminent scientists of Europe had run away from Europe and
taken asylum in the US with the coming of the German Nazis and the
Italian Fascists embodied in Hitler and Mussolini in the 1940's..
Germany itself was on the verge of making an atomic bomb and one of its
most eminent scientists, Ottohan, was fast on the way to making the
bomb, just before the timely defeat of Germany.
Albert Einstein,
Dr. Enrico Fermi and Prof Niels Bohr from Europe, who were all living in
the US, were adding their brains together to make the bomb before
Ottohan of Germany made one!
It was a race against time. If Nazi
Germany had got the Atomic Bomb first, the world today would have been a
different place to live in, with the German flag flying over the whole
world.
But the scientists in the USA won and the bomb was made in
the USA. But unfortunately it was dropped on Japan which had not yet
surrendered, and that was the greatest tragedy.
When the hundreds
and thousands of deaths from the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki came to light, the scientists were the first ones to be shocked
beyond measure and cursed each other for the tragic weapon unleashed
upon mankind!!
The drama was conceived by me, written and
directed by me and produced on a budget of Rs. 10, with most of the
props being used from the Chemistry Lab of the University!
And
speaking of double roles, I managed to play the hero and villain both at
the same time. I was Ottohan and his rival Einstein as well.
To
brush up our English we went to see the only English Movie we could find
in the Allahabad Theatres of the time, "Solomon and Sheba" a film
referring to an episode hundreds of years back!! It starred Yul Brenner
and Gina Lollobrigida.
Perhaps the most tragic mistake in the
drama was an aide rushing up to tell King Hirohito of Japan that
Hiroshima had been destroyed by a bomb. And the background releasing the
sound of the Firecracker bomb after a brief delay!! When the audience
almost fell out of their chairs!!
Here are some portraits of the time: From left to right
1. Dr. Ottohan of Germany firing his assistants, telling them : "I will quantise you!"
2.Dr. Bohr, Albert Einstein, President Truman of the US, Dr. Enrico Fermic confabulating.
3. Albert Einstein and Prof Niels Bohr playing chess, each one absent-mindely forgetting whose turn it was next.
4. The last and most poignant scene of the drama in which Einstein
enters the room with a newspaper showing the dreadful consequences of
the dropping of the bomb on Japan, and his sadness, remorse and rage at
the time-- which made many viewers say that I had beaten even Dilip
Kumar the famed Indian Actor in my enactment of the scene! Comments I
have yet to forget!
It was a Drama the faculty of Arts and
Sciences of Allahabad University were to remember for long, perhaps the
only Drama ever enacted by the Physics Department of the time-- the most
unlikely of departments for acting, drama and directing. For a while
the Physics Department had almost rivalled a Flim Making Institute.
Sadly it was not filmed and remains only in the memories of the actors
who enacted it on stage, remnants of memories being left in these few
photographs.
CAST: ALL FROM THE PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
Dr.Einstein --- Priya Nath Mehta,
Dr. Ottohan....Priya Nath Mehta,
Dr.Fermi ......Ashok Kumar Gupta,
Dr. Bohr..........Bal Krishna Chaturvedi
President Truman .. Chandra Mohan Bhandari
REAL REASON FOR THE SUCCESS OF THE DRAMA!
The Real reason for the grand success of the Drama was my Father, HH
Shri Bhola Nathji. I was too shy to act before him and so I had asked
him not to come.
When the show began at 6 pm the entire hall was
empty. And the actor who played Hitler said to me-- there is only one
man in the hall. I looked out though the curtains and saw it was my
Father sitting alone in the front row!!
And within minutes the
Hall was full. A strange Divine Light shone from His Face throughout the
time the Drama lasted and each of the actors appeared possessed by this
Divine Light, and acted beyond themselves.
The Commissioner of Allahabad was sitting next to him and said to him:
"Mr. Mehta, the man who is playing Einstein and Ottohan both has really outdone himself!"
My Father did not tell him that Mr. Mehta, i.e. myself, was his son, because he did not wish to boast about me.
At the end of the Drama Hitler came to me and said:
"Do you know the reason for the unprecedented success of the Drama --- it was your Father!!"
